A Marlin Thing To Do

In the first inning of last night's game, Marlins pitcher Tom Koehler petulantly threw at Yoenis Cespedes. You really didn't have to read between the lines too much. I'm sure the Marlins were all in a snit because Cespedes hit a ball into orbit on Monday night and then took his sweet time rounding the bases. And, well, getting their panties in a bunch is a very Marlins thing to do. They've been acting this way for years and I guess it's sort of tolerated, because when you're a joke of a franchise owned by a second-rate con artist who sniffs his own underwear, well, you can't be taken too seriously.

On the flip side of all this, the Marlins are in fact really good at one thing: Being an incredible pain in the ass when seasons come down to crunch time. In reality, the Mets should have fed Koehler his lunch last night, but Koehler kept getting out of jams. Jacob deGrom started out good but he fizzled out once again in the middle innings, and the Marlins ended up Marlining him to death. Dee Gordon was involved, because Gordon's only hitting about .924 against the Mets this season, and that oaf Justin Bour came back from the Nickelback concert to drive in some runs, and everything pretty much fell apart from there. Again, a very Marlins thing to do, because it involved everyone hitting singles and then just when you think it's over, someone hits a double. This happened in the 4th and again in the 5th, and each time the Marlins scored 3 runs and all of a sudden this game was a bloodbath. Even though the Mets have come from behind in what seems like 40 straight games, this one was probably a little too much for them.

Just to underscore how lousy a night this was for the Mets, Erik Goeddel came in to relieve deGrom in the 6th, and pitched into the 7th. When Koehler came to bat, Goeddel attempted to hit him in retribution for Cespedes, but Goeddel instead pulled a Shawn Estes and fired the pitch behind his back. By that point it wouldn't have done much good, the game was already out of reach, but if nothing else it's nice to see that someone did something and they didn't just let them slide. My personal preference would have been to throw at everyone, particularly Dietrich and Realmuto (I would have said Bour but he might try to run you over with his Hyundai in the parking lot after the game), but I'm sure someone would have thrown a temper tantrum—again, a Marlin thing to do.

Still, in the grand scheme of things, while the Marlins may have won the game, they're still the Marlins and they're still going to lose 90 games, while the Mets have bigger fish to fry, both literally and figuratively. After tonight, the Mets don't have to worry about these clowns again until next year.